[B-Greek] Koine Kasruth (Especially Keyboards)

John Schwandt jschwandt at nsa.edu
Fri Apr 22 13:35:22 EDT 2011


It sounds like there are number of members who are fearful that I am
attempting to restrict freedom in the area of keyboard or pronunciation
choice.  In that case I must have miscommunicated.

I'm merely responding to comments about best practices in these areas.  My
comments began when I read a couple posts excitedly promoting various
anglo-arranged keyboards.  I was providing ethnic and historic alternatives
that are often overlooked by our desires for efficiency.  Beyond merely
providing alternatives, I also was providing my rational along an number of
lines for why I believe these alternatives to be better.

I really wasn't expecting so many "don't tread on me" type responses.  If
you don't buy my arguments, that's fine. I truly enjoy the sharpening of
different opinions.  That is how I have arrived at my current opinions and
hope they are helpful to others.  This is coming from someone who has been
convinced by others to gain proficiency with multiple Greek keyboard layouts
(and now I think that the ethnic layout is the best).  I also spent serious
time in the Erasmian pronunciation (recorded the GNT for the German Bible
Society available in Logos), years teaching with the Modern pronunciation
and now am teaching and recording with the historical pronunciation that Dr.
Buth identified.  It takes a serious level of benefit to convince someone to
change from their current practices and I believe the Greek National
Keyboard layout and historic Biblical pronunciation has that kind of benefit
(or avoidance of detriment).  If that is the case how much more reason would
there be to presented them as the best place to begin.

My general principle when learning a foreign language is to put myself in
that language-culture as much as possible rather than trying to adapt the
language-culture to my own. (I have reasons for this principle as well, but
I think most of us agree on it.)  I think we are simply disagreeing about
what can be generally expected to be possible.

I'm not arguing against any particular individual choice.  I'm simply making
a case to categorize keyboard an English keyboard layout and Anglo
pronunciation as concessions in our practices.  And thus if we are provided
with the personal occasion to avoid the concession and embrace the foreign
we would go for it.  I have plenty of English concessions for my Greek
education that I'm still living with, but over time I strive to reduce
them.  I'm in no way a purist.  I have no problem finding situations where a
Modern Greek word works best in my Biblical Greek conversation. Rah, rah for
concessions!

So if someone has an opportunity to avoid a concession form the outset, I
want to encourage that better learning practice.  It is all too easy for
people to miss such opportunities if we restrict our conversations to how
excited we are about our concessions (implying that they aren't really
concessions at all.)

It sounds like there are people who don't think using an English keyboard
layout falls into the category of a concession to English.  I am happy to
contend that it does, but I don't want that to be confused with any
implications that I may be limiting someone's personal freedom.

Group hug, :)
John Schwandt




On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 8:28 AM, Sarah J. Blake <sarah at growingstrong.org>wrote:

> I agree with George. I can type in Greek or Hebrew nearly as fast as I can
> type in English. It leaves me a lot easier time to work with the language
> instead of hunt for keys. Kdyboards are generally arrenged in certain ways
> because of frequency of letter usage. For native speakers/writers this
> works
> well. For FL speakers/writers, it may be easier to work with an FL
> keyboard.
> There is really nothing wrong with it. If someone had an English keyboard
> based on a Greek arrangement, I wouldn't think it separated them from
> American culture. I would think it was a creative solution.
>
> Sarah J. Blake
> Personal correspondence: sjblake at growingstrong.org
> http://www.growingstrong.org
>
> Shop for items you need and support Sarah's site: http://amzn.to/bZHlZg
>
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek
> B-Greek mailing list
> B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek
>



More information about the B-Greek mailing list